14 DAY TRIAL // Clint Mansell, the composer that has scored last year's Hollywood hit Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman, has announced that he will be working with video game developer BioWare to create the score for Mass Effect 3, the mix between role playing and action that the company plans to launch late this year.
Mansell made the announcement in an interview with The Quietus, a music-oriented website, and stated, “With something like Mass Effect, you're more like a DJ, with all these elements. You've got the holding pattern, then the big explosion where you need the score to kick in. Then you need to take it off on a tangent.”
He added, “You've got all these different elements that change depending on what the player does. You have to figure out an overall symphony but be able to break it down into component parts. You can bring the pain when required.”
Mansell has previously worked on movies like Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, all of them directed by the same man, Darren Aronofsky.
A video-game-based music track, Baba Yetu from Civilization IV, has just managed to win a Grammy prize and this success could see more high-value composers become interested in the medium, which is more complex from a soundtrack point of view that a simple, linear movie.
Mass Effect 3 has been officially confirmed as being in development at BioWare late in 2010 and will apparently see the player once again take on the role of Commander Shepard as he tries to win over important allies just as the Reapers are busy assaulting Earth itself.
Mass Effect 3 does not yet have a clear launch window but BioWare has confirmed that the game will be released at the same time on the PlayStation 3 from Sony, the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and the PC.